Salvation Outpost

Everyone settles in for the night. Earic stays aboard the Zarantyr at 37’s suggestion. Faeris agrees to take the third watch and tries to get some rest. Jean collapses exhausted and is nearly instantly snoring. The Captain remains in his quarters on the top deck.

The first two watches pass without issue. Rune remains in the quarters and gets sleep with the rest of the crew.

Faeris relieves Gzizmix, joining 37 in the third watch, but remains aboard Zarantyr. As dawn approaches, Camran begins screaming in pain. His clothes tear away from his body as if shredded by an invisible creature. Several claw marks begin to appear across his back, they do not appear as wounds however. Rather they are instantly scarred as if old wounds. As a final scarred mark appears on his face, Camran bolts awake, repeatedly mumbling, "The darkness is with us always…"

The mumbling continues into the early morning before Camran goes silent and finally accepts a cup of warm tea from Jean. Due to this, Captain Vren delays the departure until late morning. He informs your group that the return trip would likely take four days as he would be piloting alone.

The day progresses slowly. You notice towing substantially slows your progress. Captain Vren moves from cloud to cloud in the hopes of hiding your progress. You notice he’s taking a more direct route to the southwest to save time. Through the afternoon, you see the mental toll the constant piloting takes on him. By late afternoon, he settles the airships into a ravine to take a short rest in his quarters. Earic follows him to have a discussion.

Meanwhile, Faeris, Jean and Camran begin the somber task of wrapping and moving the bodies of Cyre’s crew into the hold. After which they offer to teach your group how to load the ballistae. They’re also fascinated to see the elemental cannons aboard Cyre. Sloane spends the morning pouring over the cannons, trying to find insight on how they operate.

The early part of this beautiful day continues without much concern.

Vice’s company cheers Faeris up from his malaise. He still won’t talk about his experience in the mists, but he seems back to his chipper self. He and Jean show Vice, Gzizmix, Kleber and 37 the workings of the ballistae and even fire a few shots.

Vice, having spent much of the journey learning from the crew feels very confident in his new found abilities. He spends his evenings juggling and dancing for the crew and even Camran seems cheered by his performances. The captain even sets a special time on the second evening to have a proper dinner with Vice’s entertainment as the focus. He has his crew set up the Cyre’s meeting room with another table and chairs so even Cyre can enjoy the performance. Vice takes special pride in the knowledge that it’s the first time he’s seen the captain take a moment to relax and enjoy the voyage.

Kleber is happy to stay below deck and practice on the ballistae within the safety of the walls. He feels he’s got the hang of his new hand bows as well. He takes time to get some target practice within the open space of Cyre’s gun deck. Gzizmix makes his way around with Sloane. As he attempts to heal the damaged colossus, he finds his magic only works so well. The scorch marks on the Cyre’s "skeleton" are cleared and show telltale signs of scarring. The gnome tries it on the face of Cyre in her room and the years of grime reveal a brightly polished, metal face reminiscent of a cat. Though expressionless as any warforged, as he does this, he hears Cyre giggle. Her voice radiates through the network of her fibres and you hear her say "That tickles!". Sloane guesses that the damage to the warforged parts must be similar to how a warforged cannot regenerate lost limbs without more powerful magic. The fires appear to have caused permanent damage. Sloane also points out the spires and realizes Cyre is a component of the remaining air elemental’s spires, but not the previous fire elemental’s. She theorizes that the remaining fire spires could be utilized to replace the destroyed ones. She mentions they would need to find someone with knowledge of how to integrate Cyre into them. Without that, she would be unable to control the ring’s activation on her own and would need to rely on a crew to help whenever she needed to fly.

When not on deck or learning from the crew, 37 keeps Cyre company. She delights in his stories and telling of his adventures. She admits that she’s never met another warforged in person. Only witnessed the assembly of other colossi, but they were not activated yet.

After Earic’s private discussion with the captain, he approaches Malbor. "I see you’re not interested in weapons. Perhaps instead, you would like to see how to pilot? I mentioned your ring to the captain and he is intrigued to see if it will work."

Your combined watches show clear skies with an occasional Lyrandar airship passing in the distance. At one point, Gzizmix swears he sees a blue dragon circling in the distance before flying off towards the west. Late in the evening of the second day, Malbor notices that a particular ship has appeared and remained on the edge of the horizon behind them. From this distance it’s hard to tell, but it doesn’t seem to fly the colours of House Lyrandar. Upon hearing this, Captain Vren takes extra steps to conceal his flight plan, but gravely comments, "If they have sought us out, they will likely know our destination."

As you grip the crystals, you feel a connection with the elemental at the Zarantyr’s core. This one feels very wild. More like bucking bronco, intelligent and stubborn.

The captain says, "The wheel is more like holding the reins. Use it guide the direction, but you give the command."

He turns off the anchor and you can feel the elemental tense up, awaiting your word. Sensing the tension, you take a moment to calm your nerves before asking the elemental to move ahead. As you do so, you can actually feel the power of the ring course through the vessel and the ships begin to move. You realize the immense mental strain it takes to control it as you guide it first to port, then starboard. You climb higher, all the while in a mental game of tug of war with this powerful entity.

You feel a strange clarity in all of it. The chaos of your mind seems to have prepared you for moments like these. The captain comments "He must like you. Rune would be jealous."

After only twenty minutes, you feel exhausted. The captain says, "Alright Malbor, that was excellent, but you need to take a break."

Vren invites you to stay and watch as he takes over. He runs you through his experiences and recommendations for the controls. You feel you can at least land the airship if you had to.